To Rev. William Ware.
PARIS, Dec. 25, 1841.
MY DEAR FELLOW,--You see how I begin; truth is, I feel more like
writing a love-letter to you than a letter about affairs, or matters,
or things; for have you not been my fellow more than anybody else has
been? Have we not lived and labored together, have I not been in your
house as if it were my own, and have you not come into my study many
a time and oft, as little disturbing my thought, and seeming as much
to belong there, as any sunbeam that glided into it? And furthermore,
is not this anniversary time not only a fellowship season for all
Christian souls, but especially a reminder to those who have walked to
the house of God in company?
Still, however, it is of affairs that I have felt pressed to write you
ever since I left home,--indeed, ever since I received your letter from
Montreal. I have felt [169] that I ought at least to tell you that I
see no prospect of doing anything that you desire of me. When I shall
be able to address myself to any considerable task again, I know not.
At present I am lying quite perdu. I have lost all faculty, but to read
French histories, memoirs, novels, periodicals, etc., and to run after
this great show-world of Paris,--Louvre, gallery, opera, what not. I am
longing to get behind these visible curtains, and to know the spirit,
character, manner of being, of this French people. At present all is
problem to me. No Sunday, literally no cessation of labor, no sanctity
of domestic ties with multitudes, no honesty or truth (it is commonly
reported), but courtesy, kindness, it seems, and a sort of conventional
fidelity,--for instance, no stealing; a million of people here, but
without either manufactures or commerce on a great scale; petit
manufacture, petit trade, petit menage, petit prudence unexampled, and
the grandest tableaux of royal magnificence in public works and public
grounds to be seen in the world; the rez-au-chaussee (ground floor) of
Paris, a shop; all the stories above, to be let; a million of people,
and nobody at home, in our American sense of the word; an infinite
boutiquerie, an infinite bonbonnerie, an infinite stir and movement,
and no deep moral impulse that I can see; a strange melange of the most
shallow levity in society, the most atrocious license in literature,
and the most savage liberalism in politics,--on the whole, what sort of
people is it?
He bien!-to come down from my high horse before I break my neck,--here
we are, at honest housekeeping; for we hope to pay the bills. Hope to
pay, did I say? We pay as we go; that is the only way here; no stores,
no larder, no bins, no garners,--the shops of [170] Paris are all
this to every family. Our greatest good-fortune here is in having the
Walshes for our next-door neighbors; and who should I find in Mrs.
W. but a very loving cousin and hearty admirer of yours? She wishes
to write a P. S. in my letter, and I am so happy to come to you in
such good company, as well as to enhance the value of my letter with
something better than I can write, that I very gladly give the space to
her. I am only sorry and ashamed that it is so little. And so, with all
our love to you all,